Homecoming Queen, page 14
“Oh, Sonny, it’s so beautiful. I love it here. Thank you for sharing it with me. I’m humbled.”
“Aw, it’s my pleasure. I think we’ve become very good friends. You might want to come here after I leave. Here. Let’s rest and take it in.”
Without much ado, they each stuck their ski poles about eighteen inches apart into the snow, turned their skis upside down, and hooked the curved tips into the straps on the poles, leaving the skis diagonal to the ground to form a surface to lie on. Carefully, they laid back on the skis and turned their faces to the sun. Like most Michiganders, they were adept at this winter tradition considering they spent so much of the year in cold weather.
“Ahhh,” Sonny sighed, folding his hands on his belly. “This is the best sunbathing in the world. Who needs a tropical beach?”
“Indeed.”
They let the silence of the forest surround them for a bit, happy for the respite from college life. This was an enchanting, revitalizing world unto itself. With no breeze, the only sound was the flowing stream and an occasional clump of snow falling off a tree, shaking the limb. This time of year, the smell of the out-of-doors was crisp and fresh - pure. It fed the soul.
Eventually, however, Sonny said, “I’m glad you and I never tried to have sex with each other.”
She swatted his arm, and he almost lost his balance but readily corrected himself. “Why?” she teased. “Is the prospect that repulsive?”
“No. Just the opposite. But it’s a relief to have a woman friend who doesn’t expect me to sleep with her. I’m starting to feel like a piece of meat.”
She turned her head, careful not to lose her balance, and stared at him in surprise. “Huh. That’s what women usually say.”
“It happens to men, too. The women in my house can get awfully demanding. And girls on campus come on to me all the time. They assume I’m an easy roll in the hay and will sleep with anybody who asks.”
“I have heard the rumor on campus that they call you the Latin Lothario.”
“Pfft. It’s all rumor. I’ve only been with the women I live with. And that ‘Latin’ part. I’m Lebanese. Geez. Don’t they know their geography?”
“Nah. They don’t. But I know what you mean. According to the campus rumor mill, I’ve slept with every vet out there.”
“Yeah. So I’ve heard.” He punched her lightly in the arm and it was her turn to wobble on her skis. “We’re both good fodder for gossip, I guess, because we dare to operate outside the norm. We’re easy targets because we’re so visible. Sad but true. And all we want to do is speak and live our truth.”
“Agreed.” She stretched her arms up and lifted her chin, worshipping the glorious winter sunshine.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Look over there.”
Three deer, a buck and two doe, had sauntered to the stream to drink. The buck lifted his head with its velvety stubs where his rack had been until it shed in the fall, and stared at them with intense black eyes. The human interlopers stayed stock still, so the buck decided they weren’t a threat and went back to drinking. When he lifted his head again, he decided it was time to leave and bolted back through the forest, his white tail flashing. The females followed.
Llayne and Sonny watched them disappear.
“That was special,” she said.
“That’s why I love it out here. In the fall and spring I see every kind of creature and bird you can imagine. But even after it gets cold, I often see deer, rabbits, and sometimes an owl or two.”
“I am going to make this my special place, too. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. Hey. You gonna marry Lex?”
Llayne fell off her skis and hit the snow.
“Oh, sorry.” He jumped up to help her up. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I guess it’s time to go.” His brilliant smile said he knew he’d struck a tender cord.
“Yes. Time to go.”
They trekked back down the railroad tracks to the park, drove to his apartment, and deposited their equipment on his porch to let it dry out.
When it came time to part, he drove her to her apartment, got out with her, and gifted her with a giant hug. They wished each other well and that was it. Sonny jumped back into his van and whisked himself away to go back to his new old life.
The enigma was gone.
CHAPTER 17
Priscilla was at work and Lex was playing poker with his buddies, so Llayne found herself sitting in her apartment in silence, no radio, record, or TV. Sonny’s question kept bombarding her thoughts.
“Hey. You gonna marry Lex?”
Try as she might, she couldn’t come up with an answer. First of all, Lex hadn’t asked. It was too early for that. But if he did, what would she say?
Alexander “Lex” Lexington was the kind of man women dreamt of having as a husband. Women flirted with him right in front of her all the time. He acted like he didn’t even notice, but she was sure he did.
I’d be insane to give him up. What more can I want?
She thought back to a night a week earlier when she went to The Cabin, where she and Lex had agreed to meet. He was late. The band wasn’t playing yet, so it was the jukebox that played Hey There Lonely Girl as she walked in. An overwhelming sense of loneliness had swept through her until she spied her friends, the vets at the bar.
They’d greeted her heartily. Mack told her they’d been talking about Neckbreaker’s impending wedding. She congratulated the behemoth but, again, sadness at the mention of a wedding struck.
“Hey,” one of the guys said, “Mack was just complaining he ain’t got nobody to dance with.” He’d pointed at Llayne then looked at Mack. “Here ya go, my friend.”
“Ahhh,” Mack had hedged.
“Ummm.” Llayne had clumsily pointed at the dance floor. “Why not?”
“Oh. Sure.” Politely, Mack motioned toward the dancers.
He followed her, gently pressing his fingers into the small of her back. Once again, as it had when he touched it while taking homecoming pictures, her back became an erogenous zone of its own, tingling delightfully upon contact with Mack O’Brien’s hand. When she turned around, he was running that hand through his wayward hair, looking at her from bottom to top. She could tell he liked her brown hot pants and silky, beige blouse. She guessed correctly that he liked the body in them, too.
Mack held out his hands and she moved into him, placing one hand on his broad shoulder and the other into his warm, outstretched palm. Slowly, they started to move, pale blue and deep blue eyes locked in a yielding embrace. They moved closer together, Llayne’s soft body pressed into his hard chest. She laid her cheek on his shoulder, allowing his mouth to brush lightly over her hair, sending shock waves of human electricity down hundreds of tiny shafts to tickle her scalp. His grip on her back strengthened; her hand closed over his tightly.
Swaying gently in perfect rhythm to the music, they let themselves linger over each moment and languish in each heightened sensation. Mack slowly pulled his head back to look into Llayne’s eyes once again, his lips parting slightly as if he were about to say something or even offer a kiss.
The song ended. “Oh,” he said, drawn back to reality. “Well.” He was lost for words, a rare occurrence.
“Yes,” she said, as befuddled as he.
Haltingly, they joined the others.
Lex sauntered through the door, eyed them, and ambled forward waving merrily. “Hi, honey,” he’d said to Llayne, with a glancing blow of a kiss to her cheek.
“Hi, Lex,” she uttered in a shaky voice.
“Mack. Hey, my friend, long time no see.” Lex addressed his fellow vet with genuine enthusiasm.
“Hello, Lex,” Mack said, offering his hand for a shake.
“Thanks for taking care of my girl. Sorry to be so late, honey,” he said, addressing Llayne. “One of my students needed a ride home to the reservation. Whoa. I love this song.” Momma Told Me Not to Come by Three Dog Night blasted from the jukebox. “Let’s dance.” He grabbed Llayne’s hand. “Catch you in a couple of minutes, guys.” He waved at the vets.
He pulled her onto the dance floor, but she strained her neck to look back at Mack. Their eyes locked, then ripped apart when she spun around as Lex twirled her by the arm. She and Lex jerked and gyrated and when they finished, five songs later, Mack was nowhere in sight. Neckbreaker said he’d remembered a pressing engagement.
Mack O’Brien’s pressing engagement was sitting alone in his truck at the edge of The Cabin parking lot. “You damned fool,” he seethed at himself. “How in hell could you let this happen? It was that bitch, Jillie. She made you believe you couldn’t have a good woman. You actually believed that for far too long. And in the process you gave up the best woman any man could ever want. Actually handed her over to another man. A good man, no less. You flaming idiot. Well, it’s too late now. She’s gone.”
But the feel of her next to him when they’d danced, branded into every nerve ending in his body, refused to leave him alone. Her presence lingered, it teased, it tormented. Had he read her signals wrong or had she felt the same thing he did, at least for those few fleeting moments in his arms?
“Oh, you stupid dreamer,” he said, slamming his fists into the steering wheel. He started the engine, pressed too hard on the gas, and roared out of the lot. “She’s obviously in love with Mr. All-American Nice Guy Alexander ‘Lex’ Lexington. For chrissakes, why couldn’t you have fixed her up with anybody except Mr. Wonderful? He’s a great guy. He’ll be a wonderful husband and father. You could’ve talked to her at the beginning of the semester, as soon as you realized your mistake, but by then she was already going with him. How could you interfere with that? He’s a vet, a comrade in arms. He’s a friend. You can never, never try to steal a woman away from a man like that. Besides, she doesn’t want to be stolen. You really are the most ignorant man alive,” he cussed at himself all the way home, and way into the night, and way after that.
Llayne, on the other hand, in her usual self-deprecating manner, assumed she’d read Mack’s signals wrong and that the overpowering attraction she felt while they danced had been hers alone. He never showed any indication he wanted her and never would.
She’d do extra penance for her wantonness by being extra, extra attentive to Lex. Her pile of penances was starting to seem insurmountable.
“Good-ness! Pammy here is a fox. Look at those pins.” Lex held up the Playboy foldout so Llayne could see. “And she wants to be a stockbroker. Must be real smart.” He looked at her sideways.
“Huh,” Llayne sniffed. “Smart women know better than to wear spiked heels to bed like that. Look at those things. They’re lethal.”
Lex turned the picture sideways, putting Pammy in a prone position. “Oh yeahhh. A little pain goes a long way.”
“You men. You’re all demented.”
Lex snickered and put the magazine away. She left his apartment for a while, returned with her overnight bag, and went into his bedroom. The baseball game he was watching on TV took a long while to finish, so by the time he joined her, he feared she might be mad about the pinup teasing.
She slept. He took off his clothes, turned out the light on the nightstand, and crawled into bed, reaching over to put his arm around her.
“What the hell?” he squawked, throwing the covers back and switching on the light.
Llayne turned over and posed her best Pammy pose. A red garter from her Golden Saddle Gal days surrounded one thigh, black spiked heels graced her feet. That was all she wore, along with a sly grin.
“Come here, big boy. Why not try the real thing?”
“Oh yeahhh. Hurt me,” Lex said as he lowered himself to her and felt no pain.
Good sex kept her mind from wandering. She could be faithful. Really she could, if she kept herself occupied. She’d graduate soon; she’d be an adult. She’d have to learn to be responsible and responsible women don’t fantasize about men other than their mates. She could do it, really she could, she kept telling herself.
CHAPTER 18
Even after weeks of self-regulating promises, Llayne found herself gravitating toward The Cabin on graduation day in early June, as if an invisible fishing line had hooked the front of her car and was reeling her in to inescapable destruction. She was looking for Mack.
She flipped the radio off as Joy to the World came on. Radio stations had a nasty habit of overplaying new hit songs and she agreed with Priscilla, who said, “If I hear about those fucking fishes in the deep blue sea one more time I’ll croak.”
Driving in silence past the stadium, Llayne was gladder than ever that she wasn’t there, and she felt certain Mack wouldn’t be there either. Hundreds of kids on the unseasonably hot day looked sweaty and uncomfortable in their long, black gowns. The wind blustered and a number of graduates chased caps around the grounds. Yes, it’d been a wise decision to avoid that circus and have her degree sent in the mail.
Poor Priscilla and her parents were somewhere in the midst of that melee. Priscilla had insisted that Llayne not come, saying there was no reason for both of them to be miserable.
Priscilla would remain her roommate until fall, when she’d move to Flint where she’d be teaching art in a high school. This summer she’d be working her waitressing job. Llayne dreaded the day when her best friend would move away.
As she drove stop-and-go through heavy graduation traffic, she wondered if each June for the rest of her life she would secretly mourn the loss of her child. She thought back over the past year: her affair with her drama professor, the stillbirth of their baby, Bronco Buck’s House of Burlesque, being homecoming queen, having crushes on Sonny and Mack, and her relationship with Lex.
Who ever could have predicted that, out of all those men, she’d end up with Alexander Lexington? She’d heard that Walton Bates, the sleazeball who got her pregnant, was moving to Los Angeles to try to become a real actor. She laughed out loud. “Look out Hollywood,” she warned the smut capitol of the world. And then there was enigmatic Sonny, who’d disappeared into Lebanon. And Mack, who thought of her as a child. She sighed.
A wee corner of her brain sometimes shoved its way through the muck called her mind and forced her to suspect she’d been filling time, filling the void, attempting to fill her empty heart by keeping busy so she wouldn’t have to think. That Dr. Leibowitz, who she hadn’t seen since finishing his psychology class last semester, had been the one person who wanted her to stop and think. That tiny corner of her brain knew he might have been right. She closed her mind to let that piece sink, like a rock tossed down a well, to the depths of subconsciousness again.
Finally her Beetle made its way off campus and reached The Cabin. It surprised her how many cars were parked there in the middle of the afternoon. Apparently lots of kids opted for this graduation ceremony rather than the formal pomp and circumstance a mile down the road.
Squinting to see in the low light, which contrasted so dramatically with the bright afternoon sunshine she walked out of, Llayne saw Mack at the bar standing beside a petite woman. The woman wore a tight halter top and even tighter jeans, and rows of gold and silver bracelets on her arms jingled as she fussed with her short, teased hair. It annoyed Llayne to no end to have to admit that the little lady was really cute.
She walked up behind them and said, “Hi, Mack.”
He spun around and gawked. “Llayne,” he said, his voice deep with emotion. “What a surprise. Haven’t seen you in a moon’s age.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been awfully busy this semester, trying to make sure I’d graduate and all.”
“I hear you. Me, too. That Master’s thesis and those oral exams were real doozies. Oh, this is Naomi. Naomi, this is Llayne.”
Llayne nodded. “Hi.”
Naomi openly eyed her up and down suspiciously. “Hello.” Her rich, dulcet voice caused a flash of envy to grip Llayne’s throat. “You’re the homecoming queen, aren’t you?” the tomato asked.
“Yes,” Mack interjected, “she is.”
That gave Llayne the door opener she needed. “I have a little bit of quick business I’d like to discuss with Mack. Would you mind?” she asked his companion.
Naomi opened her mouth, no doubt to object, but before she could speak Mack said, “Sure, it’s okay, isn’t it?” He glared at Naomi. “Why don’t you go over there to your friends’ table and I’ll be with you in a jiff.”
Naomi didn’t like that one bit and her whole body said so. “You won’t be long, will you? This is our first date.”
Mack reassured her, and she reluctantly strutted away. He and Llayne grabbed a small table. She felt it was going well so far. It had taken her all morning to get up enough nerve to come find him.
He ordered her a Coke and club soda with lime for himself.
“What?” she said. “No Strohs today?”
“Nooo. Not during the day anymore. I’ve cut back on the drinking. We only stopped here so I could say good-bye to a few of the guys. They’ll be here soon.” He glanced at his watch. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“I wanted to say good-bye to you.”
His surprise projected onto his face. “That’s so nice. Um, you and Lex are still dating aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. She couldn’t muster up the nerve to say more, like the fact that she adored Lex but still had a hankering for Mack. Stupid thought, she admonished herself.
He likes older women, more experienced women. He likes tootsies like Naomi. He doesn’t want any commitments and he surely doesn’t want me. I’m just a kid to him. This is no more than a quick good-bye.
He smiled, and it was then she noticed the absence of the ever present Camel cigarette in his mouth. Instead, he took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and stuck it into his mouth.
“Mack? No cigarette either? Did you give that up, too?”
“Yes-sir-ee. Damn near killed me, but they’re gone. I formed quite a nasty habit when I was overseas. Cutting back on the beer was a breeze compared to giving up my smokes.”
